To My Brother, Thor, Whom I Slept With
by wrathkitty
Summary: "The boys froze in terror as their father silently took in the scene before him: Loki, bare-chested and clinging halfway up the bedpost in an attempt to avoid Thor, who had been trying to write swear words on Loki's skin using his new nasal appendages." (One of many nighttime scrapes that Loki and Thor get into; or, why the young princes of Asgard are the best birth control ever.)
1. Great Aunt Snotra's Funeral

_(AN: To get to the funny stuff first, scroll down to the 1st break (after this one), go up a few lines, and look for "Snotra.")_

* * *

><p>To My Brother, Thor, Whom I Slept With:<p>

Great Aunt Snotra's Funeral

* * *

><p>"Cruelty?" Loki repeated incredulously, cutting him off. <em>"You,<em> who abandoned me on Svartalfheim after I saved your useless hide, _and_ your precious Jane Foster – twice? And you speak to _me_ of cruelty?"

He was snarling now, beyond reason and blinded by hurt as he continued his rant, hissing, "You, who sit there from your throne of righteous indignation, accusing me of deceit and cruelty! Oh no, brother," he cried, "you will not lay my so-called sins at my feet, when you could have known the truth all along, had you _thought_ to take my body with you instead of leaving my corpse to rot – _why are you laughing?_"

Thor's shoulders were shaking in helpless mirth, but there was an undertone of hysteria to his laughter that kept Loki from killing him outright. With inordinate effort, he forced himself to harness his wrath and began to pace the length of the room, furiously waiting for the buffoon to cease his idiotic guffawing.

"Have you not been listening to yourself, cow?" Thor exclaimed when he could speak again. "Shouting at me over my lack of _sentiment_ because I did not immediately construct a pyre and send you off properly, never mind that we were in the midst of battle?"

At the word 'sentiment,' Loki came to an abrupt halt, stiffening.

"You never held the remains of the dead in such high esteem before," Thor continued pointedly from behind him. "Or do you not remember Great Aunt Snotra's funeral?"

"Yes, I remember," Loki snapped without turning around, "and it's not sentiment, it's principle. Besides," he added in a derisive mutter, "Great Aunt Snotra always found reason to box our ears whenever she watched us as children."

He heard Thor burst into laughter again. This time, however, his brother's chuckling seemed to come from a place of genuine amusement rather than sorrow. "Indeed she did," he agreed, a smile in his voice, "which is why you sent her off to Valhalla with earlobes that stretched down to her knees."

"I thought it a vast improvement," Loki sniffed, wholly unapologetic. "It distracted the eye from her face."

He was trying his best to stay angry, but the rage that had set his blood to boiling had started to dampen, and a faint smile touched his mouth as he remembered that night…

* * *

><p>Thor and he, no more than six or seven years old, standing in the crowd with their parents as the flaming pyre slipped over the edge of Franang's Falls. Each boy was determined to outdo the other in looking as mournful as possible, all the while trying to contain their sniggers whenever someone commented about the unusual flesh-colored bow that had been tied under Great-Aunt Snotra's chin.<p>

"She was truly a credit to her name," one pompous dignitary remarked, dabbing at his eyes, "for whom better than the Goddess of Prudence to go to her eternal rest with naught but a modest ribbon about her neck?"

_"Behave!"_ Frigga whispered sharply when a strangled snort escaped Thor, then glared warning daggers at Loki, who was turning purple in his efforts to stifle his own laughter.

The truth behind Great Aunt Snotra's curious funeral trimmings came to light later that evening. Both princes were thrashed soundly and sent to bed without supper, whereupon (at his brother's suggestion) Loki began trying to grow a second nose on Thor's face – practice, Thor explained, for any other upcoming funerals for relatives they did not particularly like. Loki was fairly successful at casting the spell, and laughed until he cried when Thor stuck drawing pencils up all three nostrils and proceeded to chase him around their bedchamber.

A sleep-deprived Odin stormed through the door in the midst of this game, roaring oaths and making promises of a second thrashing. The boys froze in terror as their father silently took in the scene before him – Loki, bare-chested and clinging halfway up the bedpost in an attempt to avoid Thor, who had been trying to write swear words on Loki's skin using his new nasal appendages – and then looked at each other in amazement when he promptly marched right back out again.

Their mother made an appearance soon after, her countenance more curious than angry, and exhibited a reaction similar to the Allfather's (by this time Thor had swapped the pencils for lit candlesticks and was dodging Loki's carefully-aimed mouthfuls of water). Heeding her maternal instincts, she returned several minutes later to douse the curtains, which had caught fire; yanked Loki's shirt back over his head and furiously ordered them both to go to sleep that instant.

(Thor and Loki never knew, but after marching out of their chamber, Frigga spent the next half-hour venting her frustration to Odin about _his_ sons. Her husband reasonably pointed out that scorched window dressings were hardly worth complaining about, especially in light of the midnight escapades that had transpired the previous week, which started when Thor stole a bag of chewing tobacco from a guard, and ended with Loki somehow not only convincing him to eat every last piece but then wash it all down with Frigga's best cologne – the younger prince of Asgard earned his name of Silvertongue at a very tender age.)

Under the baleful eyes of Huginn and Munnin, Thor and Loki spent the rest of that night whispering under the blankets, having lengthy discussions about whether three nostrils were better than two, what Father might look like with a nose in place of his eye patch, and whether the punishment they'd receive if Loki were able to pull off such a feat would be worth the trouble. They decided that, yes, it most certainly would be worth it, and drifted off to sleep, Thor snoring lightly with one arm and one leg sprawled over Loki. Despite the heavy weight across his chest and legs, Loki slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that his brother would always keep him safe.

When the princes came down to breakfast the following morning (the elder with a sore red nose, and the younger's cheek still bearing the smudged remnants of drawing pencil), Odin gravely informed his sons that they were expressly forbidden from attending funerals again until they were of age – but were now old enough to have separate bedchambers.

* * *

><p><em>That's all, folks! Please let me know if you liked it. And, if you did, go to my author page and take a gander at "You've Got Sucker's Luck," my Loki fic-in-progress from whence this one-shot came. I think that was bad grammar but it's two AM which is the wrathkitty rambling hour where I talk about ponies and hanging clauses.<em>

_Random stuff (see above about 2 AM): The Norse Goddess of Prudence really was named Snotra. The title is a twist on Bill Cosby's "To my brother, Russell, whom I slept with." Huginn are Muginn are Odin's ravens. Thor's questionable choices in midnight snacks is based on my husband, who at the age of 3 ate a container of dipping tobacco, followed by an Aqua Velva chaser. This is the tip of the iceberg in the number of how-the-f*ck-did-you-survive-to-adulthood stories his parents have told me about raising him (there is a reason we don't have kids yet. I would end up like Frigga, except with less impressive hair and no semi-rational spouse to keep me grounded when my own little Loki and Thor are setting things on fire after face-planting into a kerosene heater [another true story]). Suffice to say I have a WEALTH of material that could easily be translated into more misadventures of 6-year-old Loki and Thor, AKA Frigga and Odin debate the merits of eating their young. If you're interested, PM me or leave a review saying as much…if there are enough requests then I'm happy to keep adding to this fic._

_Anyway. Go look at You've Got Sucker's Luck - if anything to just see Loki's reaction to trying a caramel macchiato. (Hint: He's not going to be getting a Starbucks loyalty card anytime soon)_


	2. A Midnight Lesson

_AN: This chapter is slightly sacrilegious. Which is to say very._

* * *

><p>To My Brother, Thor, Whom I Slept With:<p>

A Midnight Lesson in Midgard's Current Events

* * *

><p>"Loki, are you certain this is a good idea?" Thor asked.<p>

"Of course, brother," Loki assured him. He tightened the rope around Thor's waist, stepping back to survey his handiwork with a critical eye, and then compared the results to the illustrations in the book he was using as a reference. _More knots, _he decided. "Master Ullr is always telling you to visualize in your mind what we read in our lessons."

"But can't we just go to Midgard and see it for ourselves?"

Loki frowned as he made a few more adjustments to the bindings. "You know Father won't let us go to Midgard again after what you did last time. Stop fidgeting!"

"The rope scratches!" Thor tried to twist away but stilled when he saw Loki's no-nonsense glare. "And what happened was not my fault!"

"You started a land war in Asia," Loki pointed out.

Thor looked down at the wooden practice swords and daggers strewn about his feet – they were to serve as kindling – and tried not to sulk. "I still don't even know what that _means." _He paused, then asked, "What _is_ Asia, anyway?"

"One of the Christian saints, of course," Loki said with all of the authority any six-year-old boy who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about could possibly muster. Truth be told, he wasn't sure what their father had been so up in arms about during that trip, either, but Thor was the one getting punished and not him, so he'd not been paying terribly close attention to the matters of Asia or land wars therein.

Thor just continued grumbling. Rolling his eyes, Loki knelt down and to take a closer examination of book's illustrations. Like all of the texts he and his brother shared, _Current Events of Midgard and Other Mostly Harmless Realms_ was a weighty tome, and this particular beast was one of Loki's favourites. Its pages were always changing, updated regularly to reflect the constant tumult of Earth's primitive societies.

"I still think we ought to do this outside," he dubiously remarked. He hefted the book onto his knees and turned it around to show Thor. "The bedpost does not look anything like this stake in the picture."

"Well, stakes are made out of wood, are they not?" Thor pointed out. "And the bedpost is wood."

"That's true," Loki was forced to agree.

With that issue settled, he set the book aside and took stock of their inventory. "All right…we have kindling, a stake, a heretic – " Thor attempted to bow, a difficult thing given he was bound from knee to shoulder in rope. "Now all we need is fire. Where did you put the flint and tinder?"

A very guilty look came over Thor's face. "Um…I thought you had it."

Loki glowered at him. _"No," _he snapped, _"I_ don't have it, because _I'm_ not tall enough to reach the cupboard in the larder! That's why it was _your_ job!"

"I'm sorry, Loki," Thor said sincerely. "Can't you use a spell, like Mother?"

Loki was not quite able to stop his bottom lip from jutting out at the mention of this sensitive topic. "She says I'm not old enough to learn fire magic yet."

"Well, get some coals from the fireplace," Thor suggested, motioning over to the hearth with his chin. The servants had banked the fire before the princes went to bed, but a few glowing embers could still be seen amidst the ashes.

Muttering into his nonexistent beard over the unfairness of fretful mothers and forgetful brothers, Loki stalked across the room and came to a halt in front of the hearth. He focused his gaze on one of the orange coals, cupped both hands together, and closed his eyes, whispering the words Frigga had taught him. Warmth filled his hands, and when he opened his eyes again, a single coal floated between his palms. _This_ magic he had at least been permitted to learn.

"It's starting to go out," he warned, hurrying back over to Thor with his hands held out before him.

"Then hurry up – I can't feel my arms anymore."

Loki knelt down at the pile of wooden practice weapons and looked up at Thor. "You're supposed to say why you're a heretic," he reminded him.

Thor had that blank look on his face again.

"I hereby renounce…," Loki prompted.

"Oh!" Thor brightened and then took a deep breath, bellowing, _"I hereby renounce the one true god!"_

Loki began laughing so hard he almost dropped the coal. "You dunderhead," he chortled between whoops of laughter, "that's what the Romans _want_ the Christians to – oh, never mind."

He deposited the coal onto the makeshift pyre and scrambled to his feat. "I condemn you to your false god, heathen!" he shouted.

Having completed these crucial steps, both boys assumed the most serious expressions of which they were capable and waited for the fire to catch.

* * *

><p><em>In the adjacent bedchamber…<em>

* * *

><p>"Odin."<p>

"Mmph."

"Do you smell smoke?"

There was a sigh, followed by the rustling of bedclothes. "My dear, all of Asgard is lit with torches," Odin yawned, reaching out his arm and drawing Frigga close to his side. "I would be concerned if you did _not_ smell smoke."

"And I would be concerned if you take that patronizing tone with me again," she snapped, not mollified in the slightest, even less so when she heard Odin's sleepy chuckle.

"Forgive me," he said, giving her a gentle squeeze. "I promise to be sweetness and light the next time you wake me in the dead of night to ask me ridiculous questions."

She pointedly withdrew Odin's hand from where it was trying to slide under her nightdress and huffed. "You forget that behavior such as _that_ is why I am compelled to wake you to ask you ridiculous questions," she reminded him. "Or do you wish to add a third troublemaker to our brood?"

Odin's eye widened at such a prospect; she might as well have doused his libido with a bucket of ice water. Loki and Thor were well on their way to sending their parents to an early grave, and not even Idunn's apples could bolster Odin and Frigga through the inevitable mayhem if they were foolish enough to give the boys a new sibling.

"I am sorry to tell you, my dear, but I believe I have developed a sudden headache."

"Poor thing. Shall I fetch one of the healers for an analgesic?"

"No, no," Odin said hastily, "that will not be necessary."

A peaceful silence fell, albeit briefly.

"Odin, I _swear_ I smell smoke."

The Allfather sighed and endeavored to be patient. "Frigga, I truly believe it is just your imagination. You know as well as I that only time the boys are ever quiet is when they are —"

Muffled yelling came from next door.

"— Asleep," Odin finished. He and Frigga stared at one another in the darkness.

"It's your turn," they said in unison.

Both were readying their arguments when their chamber door cracked open. They fell silent, watching as a Loki-shaped shadow padded across the room and tiptoed over to the wardrobe that stood in the far corner. Rustling could be heard a moment later.

Frigga reached for the lamp on her nightstand, throwing the room into full illumination.

"Loki?"

The little boy froze, squinting at his parents in the sudden brightness. "You're supposed to be asleep!" he squawked.

"As are you," Odin said sternly. "What do you have in your hands?"

Loki pressed his back to the wardrobe, wide-eyed. "Nothing, Father."

Now it was Frigga's turn to glare. Looking reproachful, she motioned the boy over to her side of the bed. Loki's face fell and he went to her, drawing his hands from behind his back as he went.

"Flint and tinder?" she exclaimed when he reluctantly set his contraband on top of the bedclothes. "Has the fire in your chamber gone out?"

"No," Loki said promptly. "The fire in our chamber has not gone out."

Frigga and Odin exchanged a look; both were quite familiar with their youngest child's ability to alternately dodge and stretch the truth to meet his needs.

"Loki, what are you and Thor doing?" she asked wearily.

The little boy shuffled from side-to-side. "Erm…"

"The truth, child," Odin warned him.

"Studying." Loki's inflection made this sound more like a question than an answer.

"I have never known you boys to be so devoted to Master Ullr's lessons," Odin remarked as he rose from the bed. He grabbed Loki by the collar, adding, "Certainly not Thor, anyway."

"But we _were_ studying!" Loki protested, scrambling to keep up with his father's much-longer strides as he was unceremoniously hauled towards the door. "We were studying about the current events of Midgard!"

Frigga threw a cloak around her shoulders and followed close behind, half-curious and half-dreading what mayhem awaited them.

Odin threw open the adjoining door that connected his and Frigga's bedchamber to the boys' and came to a halt. Thor stood neatly tied to the bedpost, surrounded by still-smoking practice weapons and reciting prayers of his own creation.

"Hello, Father!" he said brightly. "We are playing martyr. Loki is burning me at the stake for being a heretic, but the fire went out."

"Which it would not have done if you'd taught me the fire spell, Mother," Loki couldn't help saying.

"I will not have a son known as the God of Pyromania," Odin barked. "Untie your brother at once." He pushed Loki forward, who began to protest.

"But then his soul will not go to the Christian heaven –"

_"NOW!"_

"Oh, all right…"

"Whose idea was this?" Frigga asked as Loki went to untie Thor. Loki's history of tricking his older brother into the most outrageous schemes made him the likely culprit, but she was trying to be fair.

Loki was suddenly very absorbed in loosening the rope from around Thor.

"Boys…"

"Homework for Master Ullr?" Thor said hopefully.

"Extra credit," Loki added, thinking this might help bolster their story. He finished untying the last knot and helped Thor step out from his would-be pyre.

Odin raised a fierce eyebrow and sternly pointed to the area before him. Both boys shuffled over, faces down, shoulders slumped, as their mother made her way to sit on the bed. _Current Events of Midgard _still lay open on the pillow and she pulled it towards her, shaking her head when she saw the illustrations. Only Loki would have come up with the idea of martyring his brother as a prank.

"You will clean up this mess," Odin thundered.

Thor looked up in outrage, appalled by such a horrible prospect. "That is a servant's –"

"You will clean up this mess," Odin repeated, raising his voice now. "And you are hereby forbidden from doing anything that involves fire, martyrdom, or _land wars_…"

By the time the Allfather was done, the list of things from which Thor and Loki were forbidden to do was longer than the list of what was permissible. The boys were sent straight back to bed with promises of their father coming up with even more creative punishments by the morning, and their parents returned to their own chamber, whereupon they decided they were damned either way and took out their frustrations in a time honored marital tradition.

* * *

><p><em> Later that night.<em>

* * *

><p>"Thor. Are you awake?"<p>

"Mmph…Loki, g'sleep."

Loki tried again, poking his brother in the shoulder.

"Thor?"

"'M _tired_…"

"I've an idea for something we could try that does not involve fire or martyrdom. Do you wish to hear it?"

Thor pulled the pillow over his head. "Can it not wait 'till morning?"

"No."

The pillow shifted, and Thor cast a grouchy eye out from beneath it. Loki was beside him, reading _Current Events of Midgard _by the glow of a bright green star-shaped light he'd conjured.

"What is your idea?" Thor asked sleepily.

Loki beamed at him. "How long do you think it would take for us to build a guillotine?"

* * *

><p>AN Pt II: Sorry for <em>The Princess Bride<em> and _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _inside jokes, but it was **inconceivable** for me to not include them ;-) This story is based on my mom, who tried to burn her little sister at the stake when they were little. She was inspired by a Sunday school lesson and was thankfully caught by my grandmother when she came into the kitchen looking for matches.


	3. A Perilous Combination

_AN: Names and places have been changed to protect the innocent._

* * *

><p>To My Brother, Thor, Whom I Slept With:<p>

The Perils of Tobacco and Cologne

* * *

><p><em> "Bilgesnipe, bilgesnipe, Loki is a bilgesnipe,"<em> Thor chanted in a sing-song voice through the door of their bath chamber.

Loki scowled from where he sat huddled in the tub and refused to reply. Once again, Thor and he had been banished to their chambers without supper, and Loki was beginning to wonder if he would ever enjoy a full weeks' worth of meals again.

The trouble all started after Odin announced the princes' livery colours. Thor, whose favourite colour happened to be orange, had taken poorly to his new red cape, and expressed his feelings on the matter by going on a selective hunger strike. Nothing orange-coloured would pass his lips ever again, he declared, a stance that he regretted when Odin promptly ordered the lead cook to serve nothing but orange foods and keep the larder locked at all times.

Thor managed to hold out for an entire day before changing tactics: Rather than go hungry, he would whine. Endlessly.

After a week of tolerating Thor's bitter complaints (and, to be honest, also thoroughly sick of squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, and kumquats), Loki lost his temper and cast a spell in the direction of his brother's dinner plate. The roasted gourd Thor had been picking at erupted in flames, leaving him with singed eyebrows and a gawking audience.

"There," Loki calmly announced as Thor gaped at the blackened remains of what had been a perfectly-seasoned sugar pumpkin, "I have solved your problem. Now _shut up."_

Torn between congratulating Loki for a job well done, and maintaining his dual roles of parent and king, Odin settled on casting a meaningful glare at his wife, who was already rising from her seat to go and have a stern discussion with their youngest. Thor, however, cut her off at the pass and demonstrated his appreciation for Loki's industriousness by taking aim at the younger prince's eye. They were summarily banished to their rooms, where they now sat on either side of the bath chamber door, taking turns antagonizing one another.

_"Bilgesnipe, bilgesnipe, Loki is a –"_

"Can you _not_ think of a more creative taunt?" Loki demanded, hurling a bar of soap at the door. It ricocheted off the wood and flew back in his direction; he yelped and ducked, barely escaping its path as it whizzed past his head.

"Did you get hit in the head with the soap, brother?" Thor asked with a laugh.

Outraged that Thor had successfully guessed at what just happened, Loki rose from the tub, stalked across the floor and yanked open the door. Thor tumbled forward across the threshold and scrambled upright, still snickering.

"Fine," Loki announced, not caring that he was naked and dripping water everywhere. "If I am a bilgesnipe, then you are a chicken."

Thor's face went blank. "What is a chicken?" he wanted to know.

"It is a creature of Midgard," Loki informed him, drawing upon what he'd seen in his last perusal of _Current Events of Midgard_. He reached for his towel and drew it around his shoulders, covering himself from shoulders to toes in emerald green terrycloth. "One that is afraid of everything," he added.

"I am no chicken!" Thor declared, following Loki out of the bath chamber and into their room. Loki ignored him and went to their bed, busying himself with pulling a fresh nightshirt out from under his pillow.

"I take it back, Loki," Thor said, goaded into trying to make amends. "You are not a bilgesnipe."

"Oh, but I agree with you, Thor," Loki insisted, his voice muffled as he tugged the nightshirt over his head. "I _am_ a bilgesnipe. Which makes you inarguably a chicken."

His older brother just scowled, indignation written all over his face, fighting a pout and failing.

"Would you like to see a picture?" Loki offered slyly when Thor remained silent. "They are notoriously stupid animals. They do not even have the sense to roll over and die when their heads are cut off – they continue to run around their yard until they explode."

This last bit was creative license on Loki's part, but it had the desired effect: Thor stomped his foot and bellowed, _"I am no chicken!"_

"Then prove it," Loki shot back.

"Name your test," Thor ordered.

"Chickens hate the taste of tobacco," Loki solemnly informed him, making this factoid up on the fly. "Neither do they like the flavour of cologne. If you are not a chicken, then you will love the taste of both."

Thor nodded briskly in agreement with this logic, and for a moment Loki felt genuine concern about his brother's intellect. He was, however, half-starved, and on most days _did_ demonstrate a modicum of common sense.

Attributing Thor's eagerness to go along with such a ridiculous plan to lack of sustenance – who had woken up with a renewed sense of purpose that morning and refused both breakfast and lunch – Loki pulled on his pajama pants and said, "Mother keeps cologne in her room. I shall go fetch it for you."

"Fine, bilgesnipe," Thor replied with a delighted grin, too caught up in the bloodthirst of the dare to fully appreciate the snare Loki had set for him. "And the tobacco?"

"Most of the Einherjar keep some in a pouch at their belt," Loki explained. "It is ceremonial, but it will serve the purpose of you proving you are not poultry."

"I am _not_ a chi—"

"Yes, yes," Loki said dismissively, "and now you get to prove it to us all."

Tobacco and cologne were quickly obtained, and the boys reconvened at the foot of their bed with their materials at the ready.

"Am I to drink it all?" Thor asked as Loki carefully removed the many-faceted crystal bottle of cologne out from under his shirt.

"Of course not, silly," Loki said with a shake of his head. He retrieved a tumbler from the nightstand and returned to Thor's side. "Mother will know if it is all gone."

This cologne was Frigga's favourite, a rare eau de parfum distilled from the flowers of the Vanir Tree on her native Vanaheim. A hybrid variety of orange blossoms, gardenias, and lilies, it blooms once a year at sunset, and for only an hour. The Allfather had presented a new bottle to Frigga on her birthday, her last one having lasted her for almost a century thanks to a careful hand and scant usage.

Loki poured a generous measure of the golden cologne into the tumbler, handed it to Thor, and then went to the small fountain that bubbled quietly from the wall in the far corner. He placed the mouth of the crystal bottle under the stream, filled it up to the top, and gave the contents a careful swish. Diluted, the difference in colour was not terribly noticeable.

He replaced the stopper and turned back to Thor, who was sniffing the contents of his tumbler with a suspicious expression.  
>"Would you like to hear the sound a chicken makes?" Loki asked brightly.<p>

"No," Thor snapped. He raised the tumbler to his lips, took a huge swallow, and drained the cologne in one gulp, grimacing all the way. Wiping his mouth, he then let out a huge belch and turned an odd shade of green.

"D-delicious," he managed to say out before reaching for the pouch of tobacco.

"Well done, brother," Loki applauded. He sat on the bed, beaming, and tried to think of other Midgard creatures that might come in handy for future pranks as Thor upturned the pouch of tobacco and poked at the fibrous brown pieces inside.

"I think one or two pieces will suffice," Loki offered magnanimously.

Thor dug in the pouch and removed a fistful of tobacco. He took a deep breath, bracing himself, and then stuffed it all into his mouth at once.

Loki watched with interest as his brother's expression went from one of dogged determination to revulsion.

"Is it not a tasty morsel?" he inquired.

Thor's cheeks bulged, and Loki took an unconscious half-step backwards just in case the contents of Thor's mouth and stomach decided to go in a reverse direction.

Pride was the only thing that carried Thor to the end of the dare. Eyes watering, he choked down the tobacco and then raced to the fountain to gulp down huge, cleansing mouthfuls of water.

"So…how did you like it?" Loki wanted to know when his brother finally came up for air.

Thor gasped, opened his mouth to speak, and then threw up all over the floor.

* * *

><p>Odin and Frigga were preparing for bed when Loki burst into their room shouting that Thor was ill. They both took their time in making their way to the boys' chamber; projectile vomiting is a rare phenomenon among the Aesir, whose constitution is such that they are rarely bothered by stomach ailments, and it was common knowledge that Thor especially had the stomach of a goat.<p>

Alas, his gastrointestinal tract could not withstand the lethal combination of tobacco and cologne, and his parents found him in dire straits. Over the sound of Thor emptying the contents of his stomach in the fountain, Loki confessed to everything (but conveniently forgot to mention the source of the cologne in question).

Odin read him a riot act so severe that the boy was reduced to hysterical tears, and for once Frigga was not in disagreement with her husband's severity, as she had drawn the short straw and was responsible for keeping Thor company as he suffered the aftereffects of attempting to prove that he was not, in fact, a chicken. (Her lack of sympathy decreased tenfold when she discovered her bottle of cologne sitting out on the table.)

As he sniffled, watching his brother alternately retch into a bucket or bolt for the toilet, Loki tried to assuage his ego by reminding himself that Thor should have had enough sense to know tobacco and cologne were inedible. But he could not deny that he had put the idea in Thor's head in the first place, and he bore much of the responsibility for Thor's current state.

Two hours later, the worst of it was over. After murmuring comforting works – and leaving a bucket by the nightstand – Frigga tucked Thor into bed and went to leave.

"Will he die?" Loki asked, sidling up to her as she made her way to the door.

"Only of embarrassment," she said grimly. Her expression softened when she saw the distress that came into Loki's eyes, and she reached out, giving his cheek a fond caress. "He will be fine by morning," she reassured him. "You, however, are another story. Come to my sitting room after breakfast and we will discuss your punishment."

Loki nodded soberly, then balked. "Will Father be there?" he asked, trepidation making his voice quaver.

Frigga inclined her head in assent. "Of course," she said sternly. "But I believe you have already received the worst of his ire." She sighed and nudged him in the direction of the bed. "Now, try to sleep, my son. No more schemes."

"Yes, Mother," Loki meekly agreed.

He watched her leave and chewed his lip for a while in the quiet. Thor slept soundly, as usual, the only noticeable difference in his slumber being the occasional gurgle from his still-insulted stomach. Not wanting to disturb him, Loki went to the chaise lounge and curled up beneath Thor's new red cape, which still lay in a discarded heap from where he had thrown it the week before.

As he lay there in the darkness watching the rise and fall of his brother's chest, a wonderful idea occurred to Loki about how to make up with his brother. It took him several tries, but when he finally thought he had it right, he crept over to Thor's bedside and shook him awake.

"Go 'way," Thor groaned.

"I will, but first – what colour do you see?" Loki turned up the wick on the oil lamp and held the cape out for his brother's inspection. Thor cast a woozy glower at the fabric, but then a frowned puckered his brow.

"It – it's _orange,"_ he said hoarsely. His throat was still raspy from copious vomiting.

"It is an illusion," Loki explained. "To you, your cape will appear orange, but it will look red to everyone else." He'd just accomplished a complicated bit of spell work but decided that moment was not the right time for bragging.

More awake now, Thor propped himself up on one elbow and took his cape in hand, marveling at the sight of his beloved orange. Some of the spark was returning to his eyes, and he looked up and smiled at Loki. "Thank you, brother!"

"You're welcome."

Loki was about to tell him to go back to sleep when he paused, sniffing. His nose screwed up in an involuntary wrinkle. "Ugh. You smell, Thor."

Thor shrugged and eased himself back down on the mattress, one hand still clutching his cape. "And you are a bilgesnipe," he mumbled sleepily.

Grinning now, Loki cracked open one of the windows and scampered into bed alongside him. His prank had taken a rather left-handed turn but he was confident it would have the desired result, and that pancakes would greet him the next morning rather than a plateful of kumquats.


	4. Staff Vaulting

_AN: This chapter crosses the line between "absurd" and "no-holds-barred crazytown."_

* * *

><p>To My Brother, Thor, Whom I Slept With:<p>

Staff Vaulting (Or, the Origins of Loki's Pole Dancing Abilities)

* * *

><p>"This is the worst idea you've ever had," Loki grumbled.<p>

"No, brother!" Thor promptly contradicted. He peered over his shoulder to look back at Loki and grinned. "This is a _brilliant_ idea, and you are just jealous that you did not think of it first!"

Loki's scowl could not quite hide the truth of Thor's statement, but he scowled nevertheless and tried to look as indignant as possible. This wasn't hard to do; nothing ever good came of hauled out of bed in the dark of night, especially when the individual doing the hauling was Thor, shouting, "Loki, wake up!" followed by the words, "I've just thought of something!"

Once Loki was awake enough to stop complaining and actually listen, however, he'd been forced to agree that Thor's scheme had merit, and agreed to participate. Hence their current – and precarious – position beneath their parents' bed.

"Where do you think will be the best place to try it –"

_"Shut up!"_ Loki hissed, flailing an arm out and punching Thor on the shoulder. "They're coming!"

Both boys fell silent and hunkered back down to lie flat on the carpet, watching as their mother's daintily-shod feet entered the room, followed by their father's black dress boots.

"What an evening," they heard Frigga sigh as Odin shut the door behind them.

"I'm not sure what I found more fascinating," the Allfather remarked with a laugh. "How long that fool was able to discuss the lost art of salad arranging, or your ability to look enraptured as he blathered on. Well done, wife."

"Why is salad arranging an art?" Thor whispered in Loki's ear, muffling a yelp when Loki kicked him to be quiet. A silent but furious fistfight commenced, which came to a halt when Frigga asked, "Did you hear something?"

"Only the rattling of these old bones," Odin grunted as he sank down on the bed. The sound of the mattress shifting above the boys' heads was accompanied was a quiet, unmistakable _clang; _the Allfather had set Gugnir aside, propping it up against the wall by his side of the bed where he always kept it at night.

Oblivious to the presence of their sons, Odin and Frigga went about their usual evening routine. Loki had nodded off by the time they finally came to bed, leaving Thor to stand vigil as he waited for their parents to drift into sleep.

After waiting an interminable fifteen minutes, light snores could be heard. Taking that as his cue, Thor poked Loki in the side, clamping a hand down over his mouth to keep him from shouting as he came awake.

_They're asleep, _Thor mouthed to Loki, who nodded and gently pushed his brother off of him. It was time to commence Part One of their plan.

Hitching forward on his stomach, Loki inched his way over to their father's side of the bed to where Gugnir sat, just visible in the darkness, the occasional gleam of light glancing off of it from the banked fire. He waved his hands in opposite directions; the golden staff vanished from sight, tucked away in what the family had started referring to as Loki's Dimension – an invisible pocket where he habitually stored the odd object (or contraband) that caught his interest.

Gugnir acquired, the boys began to make their escape, silently coming out from under the bed and padding their way to the door. Both breathed a huge sigh of relief upon crossing the threshold into their own room.

"I thought they would never fall asleep," Thor remarked as he flung himself onto the chaise lounge. He bounced on it a few times and then eagerly motioned to Loki, urging, "Let's see it."

"Patience, brother," Loki replied, doing a perfect imitation of their deportment master. Thor stuck his tongue out in response.

Smirking, Loki retrieved Gugnir with a flourish, making it re-appear in a flash of emerald light. Gingerly, he set the golden staff upon the bed as Thor clambered up to joined him, and together they spent a few moments gazing at the legendary weapon in reverent silence.

"We should go to the practice yards," Loki remarked, breaking the quiet. He reached out a finger and drew it across the golden metal; it hummed beneath his touch. "There's not enough room in here to try it out without knocking something over."

"We could cut it in half," Thor suggested as if this were the most practical solution in all the realms. "And then weld it back together again."

Loki gawked at him in horror. "This is _Gugnir_, brother," he reminded Thor, exasperated by his brother's short-sightedness. "You cannot simply cut it in half like a _tree._ The metal is too strong." A thoughtful look suddenly came over his face. "Although…" He darted over to the stack of books on his nightstand.

"What?" Thor demanded, following him.

"Something I read in a book," Loki answered distractedly. He dug through pile, searching for one in particular.

"Of course," Thor intoned. He let his head fall back to address the ceiling as he said, "A book. Why does it always involve books?"

"Here it is!" Loki exclaimed, snatching up a small book of embossed blue leather._"Future Inventions of Midgard._ I was just reading it. It's a device called…" He leafed through the pages, muttering as he searched, "A chain…chain…Ah, here we are. A chainsaw."

He passed the book to Thor, whose scorn immediately vanished upon seeing the picture on the page. It was of an intriguing device with an orange-and-black handle, connected to a many-toothed, blunt-edged blade.

" 'Black and Decker?' " he asked, reading aloud what was written on the device's handle. He looked at Loki, wide-eyed. "What does it do?"

"It cuts through impervious materials," Loki explained, reaching out for the book. Thor made no move to return it, too busy flipping through to see what other curiosities he could find.

"Impact driver," he breathed excitedly. "Sabre saw – " He snapped his head up and looked at Loki with mounting enthusiasm. "Brother, can you _make_ any of these machines?"

Loki rolled his eyes and snatched the book from Thor's grip. "Well, that's the point, isn't it?" he retorted, turning back to the chapter about chainsaws. He skimmed the text, nodding to himself like a pompous professor in miniature as Thor waited impatiently beside him.

"What's wrong?" he demanded when Loki's face fell.

"The saw of chains will be far too loud," Loki explained with a sigh. He closed the book and set it aside. "And Mother has only just started teaching me sound dampening spells. We'll just have to try Gugnir the way it is."

Thor was too good-natured to pout for long over this disappointment, and smiled. "Let's push the furniture up against the walls," he suggested to Loki. "It will free up more space."

For once, Loki did not argue with his brother. The boys made quick work of it, leaving their bed in place to serve as a landing area. Thor had the idea to run a moat down the center of the floor, which Loki obliged, and on a whim also conjured up one or two finned creatures – sharks, he explained to Thor. They swam ominously beneath the waves, lending an air of mystery and danger.

"You first," Loki declared when their preparations were complete.

"As is my right," Thor replied confidently, narrowly missing the swing Loki aimed at his head.

Snickering, Thor hefted Gugnir in both hands and braced himself against the far wall opposite of the bed. Loki watched from the sidelines, half-hoping his brother's first attempt would be a spectacular failure (because then he could tease Thor mercilessly), and half-hoping he was successful (because then Thor might be so pleased with himself that he would forget to badger Loki into taking his own turn at the game).

Thor took a deep breath, pushed away from the wall and galloped forward, placing Gugnir's base onto the floor just as he approached the moat. Using the staff as leverage, he launched himself forward into the air and drew his knees to his chest, whooping in triumph as he sailed across the miniature river in a neat arc to land in a heap onto the bed.

"This is great fun!" he shouted, bouncing to his knees. His hair stuck out in every direction, straw-like, and he beamed exuberantly. "Your turn."

Loki managed a wan smile and stepped forward to take Gugnir from where Thor held it out to him across the moat, trying to ignore the blunt-nosed shark that was eyeing him beneath the waves. He hated heights. Why had he let Thor drag him into such a stupid adventure?

As Thor called out encouraging words ("Remember, brother, the worse that could happen is we'll get caught and Father will thrash you"), Loki attempted to gauge the distance between himself and the bed, trying to mentally prepare for what he was about to undertake.

"Chicken or bilgesnipe, brother?" he heard Thor slyly inquire.

"Neither," Loki snapped, glowering. "And move out of the way. I would hate to land on you and break your face."

Thor flopped back down onto the chaise lounge, grinning with smug superiority as Loki cautiously backed up against the wall. Clutching Gugnir between sweaty palms, he took a huge gulp of air, squeezed his eyes shut, and blindly started to run.

_Fourteen steps, _he told himself, counting the number of times his feet pounded upon the floor. Fourteen steps until he needed to press Gugnir to the ground and jump as hard as he could –

_ "Loki, watch out!"_

Loki's eyes flew open to see he was hurtling towards the waiting mouth of an eager shark. He'd either miscounted steps or been taking longer strides than usual.

Without thinking, he slammed Gugnir to the floor and leaped, but he was too slow in his timing, and the shark jumped from the water just as Loki reached the apex of his jump.

_I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die._

These would have been Loki's final thoughts, but reflexes he was heretofore unaware he possessed suddenly flared to life.

Maintaining a secure two-handed hold on Gugnir, both of Loki's legs kicked out, holding his body parallel to the moat as he swung clear of the shark. The creature rallied with its tail, managing another few inches higher in the air; Loki kicked again with his feet to propel himself a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees around Gugnir, successfully keeping himself out of harm's way. Thor, watching from below as his brother pirouetted mid-air around a pole to escape a fanged sea creature, had to admit this was quite a performance, and congratulated himself from having the idea to steal Gugnir in the first place.

The shark splashed back into the water just as Loki landed feet-first on the bed. He stood there for a second or two, breathing weakly, before falling to knees, and then face-planted forward onto the bedclothes.

"That was amazing, brother!" Thor crowed, slapping him on the shoulder. "Shall we do it again?"

Loki could only manage a muffled groan in reply, and promised himself that he would pretend to be asleep the next time Thor woke up feeling inspired.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I still can't quite believe the interest this fic is generating, but hey, I'm not arguing! Thanks! And I have no explanation for why I thought introducing Thor to power tools would be a good idea. Although to be honest he seems more like a DeWalt kind of guy than Black and Decker…<em>

_PS- If you have a second, go look at "You've Got Sucker's Luck," my other Loki fic. It's darker and less silly, but still (I think) worth a look-see._


End file.
